John 4:1-42 When therefore the LORD knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,… If proof were needed of a strange abnormal disturbance in the history of the human race, it would be found in the treatment woman has received at the hands of society. Throughout the animal world the female sex is treated with consideration. Among birds and beasts the female is never systematically maltreated. This occurs only among men. The Saviour, however, in the unsullied purity of His manhood, brushed aside as cobwebs all social regulations which tended to degrade or oppress women. But He could not do it without exciting the wonderment even of those who knew Him best. Notwithstanding her life of illicit indulgence, the Saviour enters into earnest holy conversation with her. We have an account also of So, rates once holding a parley with the "strange woman." What is the purpose of his conversation? Does he endeavour to reclaim her? Nay; he only teaches her how to ply her infamous trade with greater success, furnishing her, out of his deep knowledge of human nature, with new foibles wherewith to entrap the unwary. In extenuation of his offence it has been alleged that he was only making an experiment with his much-vaunted "method." Maybe; but it conclusively proves that he had no adequate conception of the gross turpitude of moral evil, and that he was animated by no strong desire to win back to virtue those who had fallen from feminine integrity. What infinite distance separates the conversation of Socrates with the courtesan from the conversation of Christ with the Samaritan woman! (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, |
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